


Salvation

by ThirdGenerationRockette



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: 2.09, Election Night, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 14:04:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13705983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirdGenerationRockette/pseuds/ThirdGenerationRockette
Summary: “Kiss me again,” she says, opening her eyes to look into his. “I feel like I’m asleep and any minute now I’m going to wake up alone with you still hating me, and on top of all that, without a job.”





	Salvation

Taking her hand, he pulls her into his office, moving them away from the door and smiling at her. She smiles back as he steps towards her and kisses her again, slowly, softly, and with an air of confidence that was lacking when he first kissed her earlier, his hands once again making their way into her hair, her arms stroking slowly up his back. God, she’s missed this, the way he kisses her so completely thoroughly, like nothing on earth could separate them, and she feels right now like nothing could, but she needs to step back, just for a moment…

Breaking the kiss, she rests her hands on his chest, settles her gaze on his worried face and gives him what she hopes is a smile of reassurance as her fingers play with the tie he never got around to changing out of once the broadcast was over. Her ring glistens under the slightly harsh lights of his office and it’s almost too much for her to take in; she’s engaged, to Will, the only man she’s ever wanted to marry, but had lost hope that she ever would.

He runs a finger gently down the side of her face and looks at her with such obvious adoration that she finds her eyes filling with tears and shakes her head in frustration at herself.

“Mac?” he asks, cautiously.

“I’m sorry, I’m just...” she pauses, considering her words because she doesn’t want him to think this isn’t what she wants, she just needs to know that it’s actually what he wants.

“You’re just?” he prompts, frowning in concern at her sudden quiet. “Overwhelmed,” she shrugs, quickly adding. “In a good way, I think.”

"You think?" he asks, sliding a hand down to grasp hers, never taking his eyes from her face. 

"No, definitely," she nods, smiling encouragingly at him. "Definitely in a good way, I promise." 

“Okay…” He senses she isn’t finished, raising an eyebrow as he waits.

“I…I love you Will, you must know that, and I want this, I really do, but…” she sighs. “I’m not, I mean, if you don’t…it’s been a really long, really fucking _weird_ night and I just feel like I should give you an out-“

“An out?” he interrupts.

“Yeah,” she says, looking down at where her fingers are still toying with his tie. “You know, one chance now to make a run for it if you’re realising putting a ring on my finger might have been over-egging the pudding when you could have just told me you didn’t mean to fire me and we’d have been fine.”

“Jesus Mac, the last thing I want is an out.” He lifts her chin until she looks back at him. “I’m in, one hundred percent. I’m just sorry I was such an idiot for so long-“

“You weren’t an idiot,” she says quietly. “You were…well-”

“I believe the words you used earlier were ‘massive bag of douche’,” he says, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, well, you were a bit, sometimes, but, you know, I…” She bites her lip and shrugs her shoulders.

“I swear to God, if you say you deserved it, I’ll..." He stops, huffing slightly and running a hand quickly through his hair.

“You’ll what?” she asks, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Kiss me again?”

“Would you complain if I did?” He smiles at her, sliding his arms around her and pulling her closer.

“Never,” she says, her gaze flitting between his eyes and his lips before she tugs playfully on his tie once more. “I’m serious though, Billy. If this was just some kind of crazy, spur of the moment election night impulse, then maybe you should sleep on it, and if you still want me when you wake up tomorrow then you can ask me again."

“Mackenzie,” he sighs, his hands coming to frame her face, his thumbs moving across her cheekbones. “Let’s get a few things straight right now. I know I caught you off guard, and I feel like I probably blindsided you, and I’m sorry for that. Like I said, I feel like I could have done it so much better but I just…look, I know you haven’t slept in God knows how long, and that I dragged you into a corner and babbled like a lunatic. So, I’m going to try to summarise what I said, okay?”

“Okay.” She nods, smiling again at his determination.

“I love you, Mackenzie Morgan McHale. I’m going to be in love with you for the rest of my life, I have no control over that, it’s just a...a physical law of the universe, I think is what I said. You own me, hell, you owned me from the minute I met you...” He pauses. “I’m never going to hurt you again, I love you, I want to marry you, and I love you, did I mention that?”

“Yes.” She smiles at him and something bubbles up inside her, happiness, _real_ happiness, the kind she hasn’t felt in years. “I think you may have said that a time or two.”

“So, do you get now that I don’t want to sleep on it, and I sure as shit don’t want an out?” he asks, smiling as she nods. “The only thing I want right now, is to take you home, put you in my bed, and make up for all the crap I’ve given you, I want to-“

She cuts him off with a kiss, giggling against his mouth when he slides a hand under her shirt and presses his fingers against the skin of her lower back.

“Okay.” She smiles as she pulls back. “Can we put my sudden panic down to sheer exhaustion?”

“We can put it down to a lot of things, mostly me not being even slightly fucking clear about my feelings, and we do need to talk, I know that. I have a shitload to apologise for,” he says. “But yeah, if you want to park it as exhaustion for tonight, we can do that.”

“I think,” she says, “maybe we should get out of here.”

“You do?” he asks, stopping to kiss her again, his hand moving higher up her back as she grasps his free hand, tangling her fingers in his.

“I do,” she murmurs. “I really do, preferably while I still have a shred of energy left to enjoy all of that making up to me you have planned. Actually, at this point it's probably a combination of adrenaline and caffeine, rather than real energy but whatever, the end result feels the same.”

“Do you want to…?” He tails off, suddenly seeming unsure of what he was about to ask.

“I want to go home.” She closes her eyes and leans forward, resting her head against his chest and squeezing his hand. “With you. I want you to take me home with you.”

“I plan on taking you home with me every night for the rest of my life,” he says softly, his hand returning her squeeze.

“Kiss me again,” she says, opening her eyes to look into his. “I feel like I’m asleep and any minute now I’m going to wake up alone with you still hating me, and on top of all that, without a job.”

“You are so not fired, I-" He starts but she stops him, her index finger on his lips.

“I sort of guessed that,” she says, taking her finger away and leaning in towards him. “Just kiss me."

When they finally break apart, eyes dark, breathing heavy, faces flushed, he waits only a few seconds before he pulls her to him again, and they stand in silence for a few minutes, holding on to each other, the realisation of what they almost lost for good hitting them both simultaneously. It's Mackenzie who takes a deep breath first and looks up at him, smiling as she takes his hand and squeezes, but it's Will who manages to speak.

"You know, we're going to have to get through the bullpen somehow." He tips his head towards the door, smirking. "They're all still here, and they're probably pretty drunk by now."

"I know." She nods. "We celebrated with them earlier though, surely they won't blame us for wanting to...you know."

"For wanting to go home and celebrate in private?" he asks.

"Something like that, yeah." She grins at him. "The longer we hang around here, the more likely it is that I'm going to fall asleep in the cab, and if that happens, it might be days before I wake up. You said it yourself, I haven't slept in-"

"Alright, let's go." He takes her hand and pulls her through the door and out into the newsroom, wondering if they can make it to the elevators more quickly if they simply refuse to make eye contact with the staff.

"McAvoy!" Sloan bounds over to them, glass in hand. (That'll be a no then, Will thinks.) "And almost McAvoy!"

"Yep," Mac says, grinning, but to her credit she tries to keep moving.

"I'm so happy for you, Kenzie," Sloan says, a huge smile on her face before she turns to Will and prods him in the chest. "And you, what did I tell you about the planets? You see, she's your Venus, the ring around your Saturn, the sun to your moon...fuck, I'm really quite drunk right now."

"Really?" Will raises an eyebrow. "I'd never have guessed." "I'm hiding it well," Sloan shrugs, "I know."

"Sloan." Mackenzie smiles at her friend. "You can stay and drink as much champagne as you like, and I think you should, but Will and me, we're going to-"

"Go home and fuck, I get that," Sloan says, grinning as Mackenzie's eyes go wide. 

"Sloan." Mackenzie bites back a smile, shaking her head.

"She's pretty drunk," Will nudges Mackenzie, "She's not going to remember a damn word of this conversation anyway, so..."

"Um, I'm right _here_!" Sloan interjects, as indignantly as she can manage when focusing on her words seems to be taking all she has.

"You are." Mackenzie smiles at her. "As is Don, and you have some explaining to do, when I've had some...sleep."

"Alright, alright, but I can't think why you're still standing here when you've got important business to get to." Sloan winks at Mackenzie, a wink that looks more like a nervous tic but the intention is there.

"Let's go," Mackenzie says, squeezing Will's hand.

"I love you, both of you, please remember that forever." Sloan's expression is so serious despite her drunken state that Mackenzie has to bite her lip to stop laughing. "Especially when you're choosing godparents for your kids, okay?"

"Okay." Will and Mackenzie answer together, grinning as Sloan drains her glass and walks away.

"Maybe we should have just climbed out of my office window and taken our chances," Will mumbles as Charlie approaches them, a grin splitting his face.

"I thought the two of you left hours ago," he says, clapping Will on the back before kissing Mackenzie on the cheek. "Did I mention how truly fucking happy I am for you both? I don't know, maybe I did, it's been a long night, but yeah, I am. Ecstatic!"

"Why do I feel like everyone in this room is drunk except the people who actually just got engaged?" Will asks, scanning the room and taking in the sight of the staff.

"Because it's true!" Charlie laughs. "We were all out here drinking while the two of you were...actually, where the fuck _were_ you?"

"In Will's office," Mac answers, tucking herself against Will, her hand resting on his chest.

"Jesus Christ." Charlie throws his hands up, remembering at the last second that he has a drink in one of them and saving it. "Rockefeller here has a billion dollar apartment downtown and you were getting reacquainted in his office?"

"That's not what we were doing, well, not really..." Mackenzie gives up, and shrugs. "If we could get out of here though, it would be quite nice to go home and do what you think we _were_ doing in Will's office."

"Point taken." He smiles at her, his eyes twinkling, before he turns to Will. "Get her out of here, Will. Take her home, show her how much you missed her, boss's orders!"

*

As they wait in the lobby for a car, Mackenzie leans against Will and calculates that it's been seven years, seven months, two weeks, and one day since the first time they slept together. Five years, six months, four days since the last time, not that she had known then it would be the last time. God, if she _had_...she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath to combat the sudden feeling of disbelief that once again threatens to overwhelm her. When she opens her eyes again, Will is looking at her, waiting to see if she has something to say, worried by what she knows must look like panic in her eyes. She can't seem to find words so instead she turns and nestles herself against his chest, relaxing slightly as she feels his arms wrap tentatively around her, his hands resting on her back.

"I'm okay," she says after a beat, still pressed against him.

"Car's here." He leans down and kisses the top of her head, pausing when she doesn't move. "We might need to move if we want to get in it."

A giggle escapes her, born of tiredness and bewilderment, startling her, and she pulls back to look up at him, suddenly aware that her make-up is by now probably non-existent, the look on his face telling her that he couldn't care less about that. Nobody has ever looked at her like Will does, and it took her so long the first time to get used to it, for it not to make her blush and divert her gaze, and now he's going to be looking at her that way for the rest of her life. Grabbing his hand and tangling their fingers tightly together, she starts to lead him to the car.

In the dark back seat, she kisses him. Softly at first, savouring the taste of him, the feel of his lips under hers, familiar yet still so strange all at the same time. Again she realises how much she missed this, just kissing him, breathing into him, running her thumbs across his skin, feeling his hands in her hair; she missed the comfort of knowing he loved her.

When they walk into his apartment, hands clasped tightly together, she stops him just inside the door, pushes him against the wall and kisses him again. This time it's different, this time it has the feel of a kiss that will lead somewhere, and when her stomach unexpectedly flips over, she laughs against his lips and he pulls back, head tilted, amused.

"What?" His hands are still in her hair and his thumb is making tiny, deliberate circles in front of her ear.

"I don't know, really." She shakes her head, amused by her inability to capture a single one of the many thoughts racing through her head and make sense of it. "I feel, it feels..."

"Right? Awful?" He watches her trying to gain some control of what she's thinking. "Like the worst idea in the world?"

"No," she says, firmly. "Definitely not that last one. I feel like...like a teenager who's never done this before, it's ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous," he says, smiling at her. "I'm not going to change my mind. I'm still going to be here in the morning, and the next morning, and the one after that...well, you get it. So, as much as I want you, and god knows I _really_ do, we don't have to rush anything."

"Yeah, I _was_ thinking it's only been a few years, and well, a girl needs to be sure." She quirks an eyebrow and feels herself relax.

"I'm serious," he says, his thumb stilling. "Mackenzie, I'm not playing with you, I know I've given you very little reason to trust me, but-"

"That's not it." She stops him, moving closer, pushing herself against him. "I trust you more than anyone in the world, Will, I promise you that. I'm just so tired, and so...I mean, we're here and you're kissing me and I'm kissing you and I've missed you so much, and...I love you, but...you're here..."

"I know," he pulls her to him and kisses the top of her head, running a hand softly down her back as they stand in silence, the comfortable quiet of togetherness washing over them. "I'm here, you're here, and we can do whatever you want, honey."

"Could we just...go to bed?" She breaks the quiet and he lifts his head from hers, looking down at her, saying nothing as he takes her hand and walks towards the bedroom.

He flips on a lamp and for a moment they stand at the end of his bed, just looking at each other, until Mackenzie makes the first move, which she thinks he's waiting for her to do, conscious of her confession of nerves just minutes earlier. She steps towards him and reaches out, her fingers deftly removing his tie and shirt, dropping them to the floor as she flattens her hands, mostly to stop them from trembling, to rest on his chest. His hands move to her waist, his fingers gripping her shirt, pulling her closer, watching as she starts to relax, lifting a hand to run a thumb gently across her bottom lip. He's looking at her with a mixture of disbelief and fear, yet she doesn't think for a second he's afraid of _this_ , just that he's afraid of disappointing her. Closing the space between them, she kisses him gently, taking her time to relearn the feel of his lips under hers, replacing the strange she felt earlier with the familiar that she wished for.

Leading him towards the bed, she pushes him to sit, looking right into his eyes while she kicks off her shoes, slides her skirt down her legs and steps out of it, kicking it aside. When she reaches for the buttons on her blouse, he stops her, his hand covering hers, his gaze darting between her eyes and her lips in the dim light. She feels her face heat up under the intensity of his attention, so completely fixed on her, his expression one of need, of love; she's missed him in so many ways, but until now she wasn't aware just how desperately she's missed this.

He slowly unbuttons her blouse, and she peels it away from her body and lets it drop to the floor, leaving her feeling exposed, because this is the first time he's seen her scar and even though she is mostly able to forget she has it, tonight it feels like it's flashing neon, ready to blind them both. When his fingers move across it, she can no longer bear to look at him, so she closes her eyes and just lets him touch, not burdening him with the need to school his features into something neutral to spare her feelings. Keeping her eyes closed even when she feels his lips pressing against her abdomen, her breath catches when she feels his tongue on her skin, and she slides a hand into his hair.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles against her, and she feels the words more than she hears them. 

"Please don't do that," she whispers. " _Please_."

"But if I hadn't..." He stops and looks up at her, his eyes filled with sadness again and she wants to cry.

Instead she eases herself down to sit beside him on the bed and takes his hand, moving it to rest on the scar, leaning to kiss him, less gently this time, sliding her tongue against his because she needs to taste him, she needs him to know she's scarred but she's still whole, that she isn't broken, not anymore.

"Do you want me, Billy?" She pulls back and tilts her head, her eyes wide. 

"More than anything," he says, barely audible.

"Then don't be sorry." She kisses him again and his hands slip into her hair, his fingers roaming her skull with a frantic determination.

Reaching for him, her lips still locked with his, she tries to loosen his belt as he kicks off his shoes, but the angle they're at makes it impossible and she groans in frustration before breaking the kiss and standing up.

"Jesus, just take your damn pants off." She feels her heart racing and she watches as he stands up, pulling them off, somehow managing to grab his socks in the process without falling on his face, leaving just his boxers.

Licking her lips, she peels off her underwear, her eyes never leaving his as she slides the pants down her legs and kicks them off, before sending her bra in the same direction. He takes a step closer and pulls her to him, his arms going around her, his hands softly tracing invisible patterns down her spine. Dipping his head, his lips move to her neck, leaving soft open-mouthed kisses along her skin, hot and wet enough that a moan escapes her, a sound she had almost forgotten she was capable of because it's been so long, accompanied by a warmth pooling in her abdomen.

His kisses move slowly up her neck, hotter, wetter, until his mouth covers hers again and she feels his hand move down to stroke gently across a nipple. She pushes against him, wanting more, needing it all. She deepens the kiss, her tongue moving against his, her hand reaching down to the waistband of his shorts, pulling them down, sighing when he breaks contact briefly to discard them completely.

Threading his fingers through hers, he moves her backwards towards the bed, smiling in response to her raised eyebrows.

"Scoot up, honey," he says, kneeling down at the end of the bed and sliding a hand slowly up the inside of her thigh.

"Will, I..." She doesn't bother to finish, realising she's already wet at the thought of his mouth on her, wanting his tongue inside her more than anything, so she shifts back and lets him gently move her legs apart.

He kisses the inside of her knee, one leg then the other, his tongue tickling, upping the pressure when she squirms under him. As his mouth moves higher, kissing her inner thighs, biting, sucking, she wants to tell him she loves him, to keep going, to never stop, but she can't say a thing, every attempt at words ending in an incoherent moan, a laboured gasp. So she stops trying and lets go (the sight of the diamond on her left hand serves to remind her that she has forever to tell him she loves him), and when she comes, shuddering against his lips, her eyes closed, hands bunched tightly in the sheets, she can do nothing more than repeat his name over and over.

Uncurling her fingers from the sheets, she opens her eyes and watches as he climbs onto the bed, sliding up her body until he's braced on one elbow above her, his other hand cupping her face as he kisses her slowly, softly. Threading her fingers into his hair she pulls him to her, her free hand gripping his arm as she moans into his mouth, tasting herself in his kiss. Against her hip he's hard and she instinctively moves her legs apart and raises up slightly, needing him to know she wants him, so when he pulls out of their kiss she bites her lip and frowns slightly.

"Do you have anything...I mean, do we need..." His eyes are dark, she remembers that this is the only time they look anything other than their usual blue. She likes that no one else will see them like this again, that only she will be with him this way now, and an instant calm washes over her, chased by a fresh wave of arousal as he moves against her again.

"Just please tell me you were careful with...with-" She can't bring herself to say the name on the tip of her tongue, not here, not now. "Everybody else."

"Always." He answers so quickly and so sincerely, his eyes fixed firmly on hers, that she can do nothing but nod. " _Always_."

"Then we're fine," Pulling him back to kiss her, she reaches down and runs a hand along the length of him, moving her lips from his as a wave of butterflies take flight in her core. "I...it's been a while for me, Billy."

"It's okay." He rubs a thumb across her cheekbone, softly, reverently.

"Just putting it out there." She sighs and wraps her hand around him, smiling as he lets out a groan when her hand starts to move. "In case I've completely forgotten how this goes."

"Fuck, Mackenzie." He groans as she gets faster, and she feels him harden yet further in her hand, her body desperate to feel him inside her. "I don't think you need to worry about that."

Kissing him again, running her tongue across his bottom lip, she tilts her hips and wraps a leg around him, her foot clenching halfway down his back, her breath hitching as he reaches down between them and starts to push slowly inside her, almost impossibly slowly. She feels every inch of him, filling her completely as she digs her fingers into his arm and throws her head back, his name tumbling urgently from her lips as he starts to move. Her other leg wraps around him, her feet crossed tightly together, pressed firmly against his back as he increases the pace, his hands planted either side of her face, his eyes dark and focused on hers. She had forced herself to forget how intense this always was with him because she knew it could never be that way with anyone else and she didn't dare hope for this again. Now that it's happening, she can't pull her gaze from his for even a second. Her hands move almost of their own accord, pulling his face down to hers to she can kiss him, sucking on his bottom lip and then swiping her tongue across the top to catch a trickle of sweat that has broken out.

"I love you." She doesn't recognise her own voice, breathy and urgent, trying again. "I love you."

He lifts his face from hers and their eyes lock again as he shifts his hips and drives deeper inside her, smiling as she only partially succeeds in scaling back a loud cry.

"I love you too." She's missed this Will, the one who is unguarded and entirely unselfconscious, focused on nothing but her. "Always have...never stopped."

Kissing her as he slips a hand down between them, she slides her feet higher up his back and feels suddenly like she's going to float away, like the surge building up inside her might shatter her into a million pieces that only Will can put back together. She closes her eyes when she comes, colours dancing behind them like she's been staring at the sun, and when she opens them he's looking at her like she is the sun. For a second, she wishes she could have known that every stab of pain for the last five years was leading to this, but perhaps that would have made it harder, not easier. She stills her thoughts by pulling his face to her, kissing him and pushing her fingers roughly into his hair as his head moves to the crook of her neck, his mouth open against her skin.

"Harder, Will." She knows he's close, she can feel it, she hears the change in his breathing, moans in encouragement as his teeth scrape against her neck, his tongue darting out to soothe the spot.

"Mackenzie." It's all he says, and it's all she needs to hear. As he comes, pushing deeper, groaning as he releases himself into her, she tugs on his hair, needing to see him, to look into his eyes.

Lifting his head, he rolls them gently onto their sides, shifting his weight off her, pausing only to pull a sheet up to cover them as the sweat starts to cool on their bodies. Gazing into her eyes as he smooths a sticky strand of hair out of her face, he smiles and she feels herself smiling back.

When she was a teenager, Mackenzie used to sneak into her parents' room and read her mother's romance novels, laughing at the flowery language, the overblown descriptions. She could never understand why they used phrases like 'coming home', 'feeling complete' for something that was surely just a physical act.

She understands it now.

*

“What made you ask?” She rolls to face him. “Why now, I mean?”

“Because I love you,” he says, simply. “And I want to marry you.”

“I’m glad to hear it, and the feeling is completely mutual, but you know what I mean,” she pauses, offering a faint smile. “We were fighting last night, _really_ fighting, we both said some horrible things...and just a couple of hours later you were asking me to marry you. You have to admit that’s pretty fucked up, even by our standards.”

“Do you remember when you asked me last night if I wanted to sleep on it, when you said you were giving me an out?” he asks. “Do you remember that?”

“Yeah, and you said no.” She nods. “I’m not questioning that, I know you meant it, I just wonder…why now?”

“I finally realised I was being a total idiot, and that if I wasted any more time being angry- at myself, not at you, I don’t think I’ve been angry with you for a long time…anyway, I realised that one day I’d look around and you’d be gone, and I’d be too late,” he says. “I just got tired of missing you.”

“Did you miss me every day?” she asks, looking into his eyes, feeling herself smiling almost involuntarily.

“Pretty much.” He smirks. “Except for the days you were driving me fucking insane.” 

“Well, now I get to drive you insane every day for the rest of our lives.” She sighs.

“I look forward to it,” he says. “Did you miss _me_ every day?”

“Barely gave you a thought,” she says, unable now to keep the smile from her face at all.

“Good to know.” He leans in and kisses her, his hand sliding down her arm. “You know, it’s still early.”

“Yeah, I probably should have given you the heads’ up that I haven’t had more than a few hours sleep a night in forever and as much as you wore me out last night, it’s probably going to take a while for me to break that pattern.” She moves closer, sliding her arm out to rest on his chest, smiling at him. “And you’re awake too.”

“I am.” He lifts her hand from his chest and kisses it.

“We need to check in with work, find out what’s going on,” she murmurs, wishing with all she has that they could just hide away from everything, just for today. “I really should go home and shower, put on some fresh clothes.”

“I do have a shower here, you know,” he says, tangling his fingers with hers.

“I think putting on dirty clothes would render a shower pretty pointless.” She pulls back slightly to focus on him properly. “Go back to sleep for a while, Billy, it’s early. I'll head to my place, and see you at work, I-“

“Stay.” He stops her, his voice firm as his thumb strokes across hers.

“I’m not going to walk out of here and change my mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She smiles softly at him. “Everyone’s already going to know what we were doing for half of last night, I really don’t want to show up in yesterday’s clothes to prove it to them."

“Okay.” He sighs, his eyes fixed on hers. “But we could shower together if you stay."

“We could shower together at my place too.” She quirks an eyebrow. “Unless you would prefer to just go back to sleep, I wouldn’t want to drag you from-“

"If you need...if you want some time or whatever then I guess...I mean I don't want to push-" He stops as she runs her hand down his chest and kisses him quickly, firmly.

"I just want my hairdryer and some clean underwear." She sits up, looks at him properly. "That's all."

“Let me grab some things and we can head over there,” he says, smirking. “You have coffee, right?”

“Always.” She confirms with a grin.

“Then we’ll shower and I’ll make coffee while you get ready.” He kisses her quickly before sitting up and climbing out of bed.

*

She's sitting at the dresser putting on her make-up when he appears in the mirror behind her, sitting down on the end of her bed.

"Coffee's on," he says, watching her reflection.

"Thanks." She smiles, goes back to her make-up and realises he's still watching her. "Are you just going to sit there and watch while I finish my make-up?"

"Yep," he answers.

"Why?" She frowns, still looking at his reflection rather than directly at him.

"You know, you're not exactly hard to look at, Mackenzie." He shrugs but he's smiling. 

"When I don't look like the creature from the deep?" She turns from the mirror to look at him.

"Even when you do look like the creature from the deep," he says, standing as she quirks an eyebrow.

"Will..." She sighs and gives one final glance in the mirror before she stands up and takes his hand, leading him out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. "Sit. Do you want coffee?"

"Yeah, please." He nods and she turns towards the coffee pot.

She can feel him watching her as she reaches for the mugs and moves towards the fridge, like he's never seen her before, or like he thinks she'll be gone if he lets her out of his sight. It's flattering, and unnerving, and suddenly she needs to talk, to really talk, there are things she has to say and she knows that nothing now is going to prevent them from tumbling out completely unimpeded. She won't admit it aloud but she's afraid that if they don't talk now they never will, and she can't contemplate marrying him, even though it would kill her now not to, unless she unburdens herself to him, fills in some of the gaps from the last five years.

"Can we talk?" She hands him a mug and sits down next to him at the table.

"Sure." He sounds calm but he looks terrified so she covers his hand with hers, squeezing briefly.

"I don't know how much you know about what happened while I was...after you, after we...while we were apart, but I think I need to tell you some things." She pauses, taking a drink before she can continue. "I embedded because I needed to be somewhere else, somewhere completely different. I needed something to focus on that was more than just my own misery, and I'd dabbled in a little bit of field reporting before, been in front of a camera, I was okay at it."

"I know that," he says quietly. "And you were _great_ at it."

"Yeah, well, this was different." She takes a deep breath. "It was hard, harder than I could have ever imagined. People were dying all around me, I was dragging a camera crew into places that were virtual death traps, and...at the time I thought that was okay, I thought that's what we were there for, to report on the absolute worst of it, to take whatever the consequences might be."

"That _is_ what you were there for, Mac," he says. "It's why we have foreign correspondents, so the facts and the real stories make it out."

"To a degree, yes, but when you're doing it purely for the story, to report the facts." She stops and rubs the back of her neck, willing away the anxiety she feels rising suddenly. "And I did want that, you know that's what I always want, the facts, the truth, for people to see what's actually going on."

"I saw some of those broadcasts, and that's exactly what you did." He watches her carefully, his voice low, measured. "You stood there in the middle of a war zone and you told people what was happening, _why_ it was happening, and-"

"But it wasn't all I was doing." She cuts him off abruptly. "I was trying to _feel_ something, trying to shock myself back to life, at the risk of sounding dramatic. Or maybe I was trying to prove I didn't feel anything because then it wouldn't matter if something happened because-"

"Mackenzie." He reaches for her hand, the hand she is now tapping nervously on the table, and stills it under his. "It would have mattered. Fuck, it _did_ matter!"

Standing up, she slowly pulls her blouse out from her skirt and lifts it high enough to display the scar on her abdomen, pulling his hand to rest on it.

"You don't need to..." He stutters slightly, refocusing before he continues. "I know what's there, don't you think I saw it last night?"

"You saw last night, Billy." She manages a small smile before her expression turns serious again.

"Then I don't..." He stops, waiting for her to go on.

"This is what happens when you lose focus, when your mind isn't where it should be at the exact moment it needs to be," she pushes his hand harder against her skin and slides her other hand into his hair. "I took a crew into what appeared to be a lively demonstration but that turned into a riot, quickly. It went really bad, really quickly and suddenly we were being jostled and trying to run for cover, and then before I knew what was happening I was down on the ground, but...they could have all been killed. I could have been responsible for so much more than this, for more than just my ugly scar, I-"

"It's not ugly, Mackenzie." He stops her and his hand moves over the scar, his fingers tracing it gently. "Nothing about you is ugly, _nothing_. I'll take this scar over you being...over you not having come back at all."

"Dead," she says, calmly. "You can say it. I'll take this scar over being dead too, but I'm not sure I felt that way at the time. I felt like the only thing I was managing to do with any success was fail, which I don't think is even a sentence that makes sense. I'd gone from feeling competent and capable to feeling like I didn't know what the hell I was doing any more. I fucked up you and me, I tried to go overseas to do something good and ended up bleeding out on a filthy street in the middle of a riot, and then when I got back and tried to convince myself that things would be better, I found myself with nothing, with things worse than before."

"What happened when you got back?" Will asks, pulling her gently back into the seat bedside him. "Charlie found you, didn't he, and brought you to ACN."

"Eventually, yeah." She nods. "Did he ever tell you where he found me?"

"No, I don't think so." He frowns. "Why?"

"I didn't come back because I wanted to." She looks down, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. "CNN sent me home, they said I was 'no longer suitable personnel to be working in an active combat environment'."

"Whatever the fuck that means." He runs a thumb across the back of her hand and waits for her to continue.

"It means I failed a psych screening, pretty fucking spectacularly, and once that happens they apparently have no option but to put you on the first flight home." She looks back at him, biting her lip but continuing. "I got back and I felt like I'd re-entered from space, everything felt so strange. CNN kept me in DC for a month and then they said I should perhaps explore other options. I think they thought I was a liability, a loose cannon, and maybe I was, I don't know. I wasn't exactly doing a great job of holding it together."

"Jesus, Mac, I had no idea it was so..." He rubs a hand across his forehead, and she knows he's angry with himself. "Shit."

"This isn't me trying to make you feel guilty, or wanting you to beat yourself up all over again. I want you to know, _need_ you to know who you just asked to be your wife, that I'm still me but I'm different now, that _some_ parts of me are different now." She smiles at him but the tension on his face doesn't lift. "Anyway, for four months I had nothing, nobody would hire me, not New York, DC, London, and I...I was just so miserable, I can see it now, but at the time I thought I was okay. Well, maybe not _okay_ , but I thought I was managing, at least."

"And that's when Charlie stepped in?" Will asks, quietly.

"Yeah," she answers, smiling faintly. "You don't expect to find your salvation in a bowling alley." 

"Not where I thought you were going," he murmurs, shifting closer to her. "But go on."

"It was 11am on a Monday and I was bowling. Badly. And I was drunk. Not falling down drunk, but pleasantly buzzed drunk, just like I was pretty much every day for those few months." She pauses, takes a second as the memory of that morning washes over her. "It was like college, but without the blind optimism you have as a twenty year old, and without the knowledge of an end in sight."

"Charlie told me you were mentally and physically exhausted." He leans in and she relaxes, breathing in his freshly showered scent. "He didn't say-"

"That I'd been sent home with a PTSD diagnosis and he'd found me drunk at a bowling alley when he came to offer me the job?" She smiles, more easily now she knows he's here and he's promising it's for good.

"Yeah, none of that." Will shakes his head slightly, and falls quiet, taking it all in the way she knew he would.

"I'm really only telling you because you should know, and not because I'm blaming you." She takes his hand and holds onto it, almost too tightly. "I just feel like if I didn't, I'd be selling you a version of me that might not be real any more, one that you might not-"

"Want?" He stops her. "I told you last night, and I'll tell you every day from now on, I'm always going to want you, no matter what. I-"

"Understand." She smirks. "I was going to say a version of me you might not understand, but I'm fine with you reminding me you want me, I'm never going to complain about that."

"I've been with you every day for the last two and half years, it's not like I don't see you," he sighs. "I get that I spent so much time treating you like shit that you might not realise that. I watch you in the rundown meetings, in the bullpen, and I see you, Mackenzie. I know you, and I love you, this version of you, the old version of you, clothed Mackenzie, naked Mackenzie, angry Mackenzie, happy Mackenzie-"

Stopping him with a kiss, she chides herself silently for thinking he might not understand, for thinking maybe he hadn't noticed the subtle shifts in her, and was expecting the Mackenzie of five years ago. Of course she's seen how he watches her, she's not blind, she knows he likes to look at her, but she hadn't considered it was for anything more than the physical appeal, than the attraction that is always there between them. She certainly hadn't given a thought to him cataloguing the changes in her, seeing who she is now and how the last few years have impacted the way is, who she is.

"Oh God, we really do need to go to work," she says as she pulls away only slightly, her lips still touching his. "The suit's going to be filed this morning, we really need to be there, Will."

"I know." He sighs, turning their hands over to slide his fingers through hers. "You okay?" 

Nodding, she smiles before kissing him again, squeezing his fingers. "I'm fine."

*

The suit is filed, Rebecca strides in uninvited to the first rundown meeting of the day, tells them to just let her do her job (focusing mainly on Will, to his chagrin and Mackenzie's amusement), reminds them to just keep doing theirs, and leaves almost as quickly as she arrived. The staff is unsettled, understandably, but calmed slightly by Charlie's appearance in the bullpen asking them to all have faith, to keep doing their jobs as well as they have been, and assuring them things will be fine. Charlie heads into the conference room and asks Will and Mac to stay behind as, one by one, the team file out and back to their desks.

"Do we know what to expect?" Mackenzie asks him, clutching her notepad tightly, nervously. "I mean, I know we can't guess the ultimate outcome, obviously, but did Rebecca give you any indication of-"

"Mac." Charlie stops her, glancing quickly at Will, perched on the corner of the conference table, then turning his attention back to Mackenzie.

"Sorry." She shakes her head. "It's just hard to reassure everyone else when we don't know what's going to happen."

"That's why we have our Director of Morale here." He tips his head towards Will, smirking. 

"Charlie, I'm serious," Mackenzie says, sighing heavily.

"Mac." Charlie steps closer to her, smiling. "The suit is filed, and that, for now, is it. These things can drag on for months, you know that, but Rebecca is on it, she'll do what needs to be done, and she'll tell us anything we need to know. Until then, we just get back to work."

"I can't help thinking it would have been easier if Leona and Reese had just let us resign." She pauses. "Or me, at least. Surely then Rebecca could have-"

"Alright, enough." Will steps in. "None of us will be resigning, the suit is filed, it is what it is. Nobody here did anything wrong, _nobody_."

"Listen to him, Mac." Charlie smiles. "Sometimes he talks sense. Like last night when whatever he said ended with that ring sitting on your finger."

"Fine" Mackenzie sighs again but she relaxes a little, smiling at Charlie as he walks out and crosses the bullpen.

Will is ahead of her, walking back to his office when Mackenzie catches up with him, a hand on his arm sliding down to take his, towing him through her office door, closing it behind them.

"Thank you." She smiles, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "For the flowers. I have no idea how you managed to sneak in an order for them when I've barely left your sight, but they're beautiful."

"You're welcome." He steps closer, his fingers playing with hers as he smiles at her. "You were drying your hair for easily ten minutes this morning, and there's this crazy thing now called the internet. You can buy anything there."

"Really? Sounds like fun, I think I might like it there." She smiles back. "You're setting quite the precedent here, Will. Diamond ring, flowers, I can't imagine what's next."

"Dinner." He pulls their joined hands up towards his and kisses her fingers one by one looking at her as he does.

"You know, this is really not appropriate work behaviour." She tries to sound serious but the giggle escaping her negates the threat. "And we can't eat dinner, it's not even noon."

"Tonight." He smiles again and she thinks how good it is to see him smile, and how happy she is to be the reason. "Let me take you for dinner _tonight_."

"Is this all part of Operation Dark and Damp?" she asks.

"Operation Dark and Damp?" She's fairly sure he knows what she's talking about but he asks anyway.

"You know what I'm asking, Billy." She sighs. "I need to sleep, and you're clearly planning to work on that in ways I won't object to. Is this part two, feed me up?"

"I wouldn't have used the term 'feed you up'." He pauses for a second, his eyes focused on hers. "But I know you've been eating about as well as you've been sleeping, so I thought dinner might be a good place to start."

"Alright." Pausing, she frees her hand from his and places both palms flat against his chest. "Dinner tonight is a nice idea, and then..."

"And then we go back to your place?" He sounds unsure and she wonders how long it will be before he relaxes when she teases him, and how long before _she_ accepts fully that he wants her again, forever.

"I hope you had the smarts to throw more than just today's clothes into that go bag of yours." She smiles and slides her hands higher, bringing them to rest on his shoulders, moving her face closer to his.

"I did." He nods and she leans in to kiss him quickly, not missing the irony of having reminded him of appropriate workplace behaviour mere seconds ago.

"Good." Her voice drops lower and she bites her lip as she looks up at him. "That means I get you in _my_ bed tonight."

"I'm completely okay with that." His slow smile and the look in his eyes sends her thoughts back to the night before and she feels a blush moving into her cheeks, shaking her head at how ridiculous that is.

"I don't want us to live there." It's out of her mouth before she can contain it, she didn't have any intention of raising the subject yet, and she bites her lip as if trying to recall her words.

"At your place?" He looks confused. "Or at mine?"

"Yes," she says, shaking her head as she realises she's not making herself clear at all. "Both. Neither. I know we don't really have time to talk about this now, but I don't want to live somewhere that was yours or mine, I want somewhere new, somewhere that's _ours_. Maybe somewhere we can renovate, make it how we want it...I don't know."

"Okay…" He looks lost for words and she laughs.

"Sorry, I had no intention of hurling all that at you, especially after hitting you with everything else this morning." Shrugging, she decides there's no point trying to take any of it back now. "But yeah, that's what I want, just...what do you think?"

"I think you just said we don't have time to talk about this now, so..." He gives her a half smile.

"You're right," she says, squeezing his shoulders before stepping back. "We can talk later, at dinner. I don't really want to go anywhere fancy though. I'd love a couple of weeks sleep in the bank before I risk ending up splashed all over Page Six as Will McAvoy's latest conquest."

"Deal," he says, smiling at her as he heads for the door. "But you're not my latest conquest, you're my final conquest."

"Your Everest, your North Pole, your flag planted on the moon." She pauses, holding up her left hand, the huge diamond on her finger blatantly obvious in front of her face. "Or something like that."

"Mackenzie." His tone turns serious and he pauses before continuing. "I want what you want, new place, new start, and I want to..."

"What?" She steps closer to him again, prompting him to go on. "What do you want?" 

"I just...I want to be a good husband," he says, his eyes on hers.

"You will be." She feels the smile start to spread across her face as he stands in front of her, so earnest, so determined. "We're going to be so good at being married."

"We are?" He smiles back.

"Yep." She nods, her smile no longer able to be contained. 

"What makes you so sure?" he asks.

"Look how good we are at this," she gestures around the office. "We'll just do at home what we do here, add in the really good sex, the really _great_ sex, and I don't see how we can go wrong."

"I guess we can't add in the really great sex here, can we?" He smirks and waggles a suggestive eyebrow.

"You guess right." She laughs. "You know what though?"

"What's that?" He rests his hands on her shoulders and smiles softly at her.

"The harder we work today, the quicker the time passes," she looks up at him, once again savouring the feel of his hands on her, sighing happily as she remembers this is forever now. "The quicker the time passes, the sooner we can go and eat dinner, the sooner we eat dinner the sooner we can go home, and the sooner we get home the sooner we...do you see where I'm going with this?"

"I do, I _really_ do." He gives her shoulders a final squeeze and steps back. "I'll let you get to work."

"See, you've got it already." She heads towards her desk, glancing again at the huge bouquet, wondering briefly if she'll ever stop smiling.

She isn't so naive to assume they won't still fight, they will probably always fight, but it will be different because they can go home together, can make up in the way they always used to, and at the end of each day they will have each other.

"Billy." She stops him as he reaches the door and he smiles as he turns back. "You're going to be a great husband."


End file.
